[Aeon Covenant]

The Scanners/Highlander Players' Guide

By Peter Flanagan

Chapter Two: The Aeon Toolbox

Traits: Merits and Flaws

As with other Players' Guides, this document is mean to provide players with new and different options for developing their characters. One of the best ideas to come from the official White Wolf books are Merits and Flaws, which function like the advantages and limitations in other RPGs. Merits cost Freebie Points, and Flaws give them. Buying off Flaws (or purchasing Merits, if allowed) costs five times the original freebie cost in experience points. If you want to know more about them, go buy a Player's Guide (I especially recommend the Book of Shadows) and read up on 'em. Included here are a few Scanner specific Merits and Flaws, and one Immortal specific Merit. Ascension's Right Hand also has some interesting Traits for Mages' creations. Note: All the "normal" Traits are available to Scanners & Immortals, though all the Mental Merits can be duplicated with Telepathy except for Common Sense.

Note the 2nd: Scanners 2nd ed. includes a whole host of Merits and Flaws. Enjoy!

Supernatural Merits and Flaws

As stated in the other Guides, these are the rare and wondrous traits that can mark a character as truly special, make for a really cool gaming session, and really screw up play balance. YHBW.

PK Natural

(5 point Merit)

You make no distinction between Forces; all three powers rise equally and you don't have to buy anything up later. Perhaps you're a bit more enlightened than your fellow Scanners, or just more talented. This Merit causes PK to function almost identically to Forces Magick, but use the Scanner listing in case of contradiction.

Disorder Control/Weakness

(7 point Merit/5 point Flaw)

There's something really odd about your Disorder -- either it's really weak, due to luck or sheer cussedness, or unnaturally strong in you. Either way, you react differently to it. If you have Disorder Control, then you don't suffer from your Disorder unless your Willpower is down to one. You don't gain any side benefits, however, by "unleashing" your power. Disorder Weakness means that any time you botch a psi-related roll, you must make a Willpower check or suffer the affects of your Disorder, regardless of your present level of Will. This Trait must be used with caution, if allowed at all.

Veil/Fog/Mists

(3 point Merit)

The strange miasmic force that hides other supernatural forces in the world also protects you. This can be a maddening matter if trying to prove what you are to someone, but in general is very useful. "Who was that masked man?"

Technomancer Ally

(3-5 Point Merit)

This is especially valuable to a Scanner, as it means you know a Willworker with a Scientific paradigm. This Scientist (please, not Mage) can aid you in innumerable ways, although your assistance may also be required, and you will certainly spend some time as a lab rat -- er, assisting with various experiments. The three point Merit means you know one of the more decent members of the Technocracy, but you might become entangled in Technocratic red tape. Or worse. The five point Merit indicates a Son of Ether, Virtual Adept, or techno-Orphan, who most likely will not embroil you in such things.

Psychic Flicker

(1-5 point Flaw)

This functions similarly to Echoes from the Mage and Changeling Guides, but instead means you have a tendency to use your powers unconsciously. A one point Flaw means you will occasionally pick up useless trivia from people's minds, a three point Flaw results in disturbing bursts of psi activity, especially "poltergeist haunting" from all three kinds of PK, and a five point Flaw can do anything from paralyzing you with your own powers to setting off every burglar alarm in a three mile radius.

Immortal-Timeslip

(4 point Merit)

You move easily from false life to false life. This is as much a mystic power as a skill; you have a sort of Arcane fog about you that prevents mortals from tracing your previous "lives" the way Connor was uncovered in the original Highlander. You even start to look different after a while, subtly matching modern appearance.